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The little details that scare the shit out of you in horror games

Eccocid said:
well 3d one but the first one on PSX. I know there is a 2d one on SNES. But then there are 2 clock towers on PSX.
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SNES one was released on PSX as well with FMVs. Just had to be sure since I never found the 3D games as creepy as the original.
 
While Condemned has gotten a few mentions, I'm surprised its sound design hasn't been brought up. Condemned got the sound down perfect, always letting you know when something was there, but never quite letting you know where it was coming from.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories wasn't quite scary, but it had plenty of great atmospheric moments. I think they could've really ratcheted up the creepiness, but one part in particular that stuck with me was
slowly falling to your watery grave while you were trapped in an SUV
. It's a very real fear, so it was interesting to see it explored/exploited in the videogame medium.
 
randomwab said:
Crimson Heads in REmake and the fight with Piggsy in Manhunt are about the most nerve-wracking things I've ever encountered in games, but they're very memorable because of that.
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I turned off my PS2 the first time I got to Piggsy. You leave the elevator, walk down the hallway and then you hear a chainsaw start up. When you try to run away you end up in rooms that might have a bathtub filled with blood and body parts, or piles or shit or bizarre graffiti. It's like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre only you can't close your eyes because you're the one being chased. Manhunt was ridiculous.

Too bad the sequel didn't live up to the patient files that were on the Manhunt 2 site.

http://www.projectmanhunt.com/manhunt2/patientfiles_patient_01.php

I still get freaked out reading those.
 
Ok aren't original but yeah...

- First dog out the window in RE1 -- holyshit I step 3 feet there.
- Dead babies in Silent Hill.
- First time that shadow thing passes before you at the end of the corridor (Condemned)
 
Oh dear god the mannequins, the mannequins.

SilentHill3_Mannequins.jpg


EDIT: I sold this game without completing it because of this section.
 
The cheap little scares in Fatal Frame which catch you off guard when you're waiting for a big, angry ghost to come flying out of a wall. Like a doll tumbling off the shelf behind you, or a candle suddenly bursting into flame.
 
ANYTHING chasing me, i don't care what game it is, if something's chasing behind me, especially in a first person, i get freaked the fuck out.
 
The beginning of Silent Hill 1's demo, when you find the skinned corpse hung on a fence in the alley.. And then get killed dead by pale knife-wielding babies.

If they had been kept as-is in the final version instead of being replaced by mutants, I doubt that I would have ever finished that game.

Also: Wriggling/Struggling bodybags in any game ever.
 
Not sure if it has already been mentioned, but i recently played through the scene in Gears of War 2 where you're trying to escape the facility, and those creatures in test tubes have been awoken and are starting to thrash at the glass to be let out. You don't know where the next one is coming from, and they just charge at you.

Also, pretty much any part of Dead Space where you enter a quiet room and just know know that something is about to go down.
 
Brizzo24 said:
Also, pretty much any part of Dead Space where you enter a quiet room and just know know that something is about to go down.
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Dead Space does this better than most horror games nowadays, but it really is becoming something of a lost art. Even Dead Space has problems with it. For the suspense to be effective for me, there has to be times where nothing happens. Where you're so sure that there's some horror lurking just at the end of the hallway, and then... nothing.

Too many jumpscares in a row leave a player/viewer expecting them. When you brace for horror, it loses much of its edge. Unfortunately, everyone is going in to a horror game expecting the horror, so there has got to be some give and take. You can't just have crazy monsters trying to kill the player all the time, there has to be a sense of dread stemming from not knowing whether or not there actually is anything behind them, waiting.

A non-horror game that does this exceedingly well at times is the Half-Life series. There isn't always a headcrab in the vent. Maybe enough time passes that you are genuinely shocked. It sometimes felt really clumsy, though, like the entirety of Ravenholm (which is, coincidentally, where I stopped playing all three times I've tried to get through the game).

Then there are good shock/horror movies that have almost constant jumpscares, but play around with it enough to keep it fresh (such as The Descent), but that's an entirely different conversation.
 
Bioshock was mentioned a few times, but not this particular scene -

There is a partially flooded room and you have to go down a DARK hallway to get to a plot piece... as soon as you commit to the hallway with 3 foot water in it, you notice a dead body floating and then see a shadow cover the light down the hallway (the ONLY light in the entire hallway, mind you). Covered in complete darkness you hear laughing and splashing of water coming toward you. I got the f*** outta there.

When I changed my pants and decided to walk all the way through, there was nothing in the room except for the plot device. No crazy-sounding doctor like there had sounded, and no evidence of the noises I had heard.... too scary for me...

Also, the F.E.A.R. games REALLY got me (just looked on youtube for the cutscenes). Like, holy cow scary.
 
Hugbot said:
A non-horror game that does this exceedingly well at times is the Half-Life series. There isn't always a headcrab in the vent. Maybe enough time passes that you are genuinely shocked. It sometimes felt really clumsy, though, like the entirety of Ravenholm (which is, coincidentally, where I stopped playing all three times I've tried to get through the game).
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You must get through this section...you simply must do it. I too stopped at this section, only to pick it up sometime much later. I know, it's not the best place in the game, and it can feel like a long stretch, but once you're through it, you'll be eternally grateful.
 
Brizzo24 said:
You must get through this section...you simply must do it. I too stopped at this section, only to pick it up sometime much later. I know, it's not the best place in the game, and it can feel like a long stretch, but once you're through it, you'll be eternally grateful.
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The best part is last time I actually got through it (almost to the point where it's a new chapter, and thus a new place to start a game from), and my save got wiped. I'm just gonna bite the bullet soon and get through it, I loved everything up to that point so much.
 
Brizzo24 said:
Not sure if it has already been mentioned, but i recently played through the scene in Gears of War 2 where you're trying to escape the facility, and those creatures in test tubes have been awoken and are starting to thrash at the glass to be let out. You don't know where the next one is coming from, and they just charge at you.

Also, pretty much any part of Dead Space where you enter a quiet room and just know know that something is about to go down.
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oh shiiiiiiit, you just reminded me when the Tyrant gets out of his glass tube in Resident Evil and starts walking agressively toward you. The stress!!
 
timetokill said:
Fatal Frame II... the fact that the ghosts can go through walls, and suddenly appear right next to you :lol
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Yup, the reason the Fatal Frame series is still king as far as I am concerned.

But its not just the walking through walls, its the teleporting, the walking through walls, the vanishing ghosts, the flaming priests, the "Woman in the Box" (Jez this one freaked me the fuck out when I went to save...), the Lords (holy shit the first time you meet one of these), the flashlight going dead, and the list goes on. Fatal Frame did one thing exceptionally well and that was always making your second guess what was coming at you next.


As far as small details mine would have to be the Woman in the Box though, because I didn't expect that one.
 
It's more the things that build anticipation that gets me - the shadow that moves across a window in the distance, something passing between you and the camera (accompanied by a rise in the music or a sound of some kind) but then you turn and it's gone. When you start moving slower and taking aim at shadowy boxes just in case, that's awesome.
 
RE4 Regenerators
Damn that creepy-as-hell music that played when they appeared

Re4-iron-maiden-2.jpg



EDIT: Also in Silent Hill, The way the camera moved when you went into the alley, as if you were looking through the eyes of a creature coming straight toward the character. Good stuff!
 
Atmospheric crap.

Like in FEAR when your HUD starts cracking and fizzling out.

Or Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines in that fucking hotel and lights just pop for no reason and shit.

I forget the specific game, but when it gets dark and you hear skittering of a small, fast and probably many-toothed creature nearby. Or a fuckload of them.
 
FlashbladeGAF said:
RE4 Regenerators
Damn that creepy-as-hell music that played when they appeared
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Especially if you don't have the thermal scope and you keep emptying clips into him and he just keeps coming. Then just as your ammo is starting to run low he finally goes down ...... and starts slithering along the floor towards you.
 
I know it's not much of a horror game, but Indigo Prophecy had some genuine moments that scared me.

The idea of a game hiding tense moments in gameplay, not cutscenes, I find truly frightening.

The door is shaking and there's someone behind it trying to break into your house, for example. Instead of this moment being a cutscene, say you are in complete control of your character in a normal moment of the evening when suddenly you hear noises from the door and you choose to hide yourself quickly or grab a weapon before the intruder finally gets the door open.

The suspense of successfully hiding yourself from the intruder or sneaking up on him before you attack.

I look forward to Heavy Rain because I feel it will have more moments like these in video games.

Scary moments where you are in control and the control isn't given to the safety net of a video cutscene is something I find truly terrifying in a game. That's just me, however.
 
PixelJunkie said:
Yup, the reason the Fatal Frame series is still king as far as I am concerned.

But its not just the walking through walls, its the teleporting, the walking through walls, the vanishing ghosts, the flaming priests, the "Woman in the Box" (Jez this one freaked me the fuck out when I went to save...), the Lords (holy shit the first time you meet one of these), the flashlight going dead, and the list goes on. Fatal Frame did one thing exceptionally well and that was always making your second guess what was coming at you next.


As far as small details mine would have to be the Woman in the Box though, because I didn't expect that one.
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I had forgotten Woman in the Box, so I looked up this video of her and she is just as creepy as you said. But it also reminds of yet another little thing in Fatal Frame that makes it so scary: Kimonos stretched out on frames that block your view or fool you into thinking a ghost is there when you open the door and the room has been rearranged from last time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=605dGRFevaI

Nothing freaks me out more than the Kusabi, though. When he
appeared again in FF 3
I really felt like turning the game off. I had more than enough of him
in FF 2.
 
I just remembered one from RE2. I was playing the game at 2AM or something, made it to the facility and started hearing the sound of a licker in the hallway in front of me. I was a little on edge, then I rounded the corner and nothing was there. I assumed it was in the next hallway, so I started running forward and BAM THE FUCKER COMES OUTTA THE VENT. I nearly shit my pants.
 
Recently Bioshock really got me. Going into a freaky ass place like Rapture all alone really got into my head because every little movement or change in the environment got my attention.
 
A few memories stick out...

I think it was the first Blair Witch game on the Nocturne engine; controlling a girl and wandering into an abandoned house on the edge of a darkened rainswept forest. The Nocturne engine was damn well terrific for its spotlight antics...anyway, wandering into the house and upstairs, there was the faint sound of children laughing. Making my way into one of the rooms, I swept my torch across the room and, briefly, the ghostly forms of children ran through the light and back through the door. Put me on edge.

System Shock 2...most of it was terrific and scary. Played it mostly at night with headphones on, so I was nervous and jumpy all the time. I can remember not seeing
the man hanging in the first section of the ship after gaining access to the lift
until the last minute, which freaked me out completely. I undoubtedly copped a wrench to the brain after that from a hybrid. But a game forever to be matched.
 
The one part of Resident Evil 4 that legitimately scared me and caused my heart to race was the little shack right after the first main house you're in during the first level, I didn't see the old man in there as I walked past and I let out a yelp when he stabbed Leon with his pick-axe.
 
Only part of RE4 that scared me was when some fire zombie thing pops out of a referigerator and the Regenerator's snoring sound was creepy and an excellent sound effect.
 
The pidder-padder of little zombie feet. Also, those special ops chicks in Half-Life. You walk through a room in silence and then you just here rapid footsteps, hey what the fuck is that OMG where are you you SON OF A BITCH! COME OUT HERE!
 
LosDaddie said:
To each their own. I find Dead Space's audio design greatly adds to the atmosphere. That the necromorphs are always around you.

In fact, if those atmospheric sounds only played when something was about to happen, I'd find the game to be entirely predictable.
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But they are already predictable since the morphs loudly announce their presence unless they play dead. So it doesnt matter.
 
Also something that is in your face and scary but not a jump scare are the enemies in SS2 that scream out for you to kill them or run away as they attack you.
 
Killer 7 has a lot of moments where I jumped out of my seat. It's got a weird, creepy vibe that isn't like any other game I've ever played.
 
The controls in Silent Hill games. They scare me because I know that if something pops out, I'll run myself into a wall..... and then die.
 
In Eternal Darkness, when Alex's sanity was low enough, there was a bust on the second floor on the mansion that started watching you and following your movements through the hallway with its head. That creeped me the hell out, I always tried to avoid that hallway. Also, the knocking on the other side of the doors when you walked up to a door with lower sanity. I started expecting it when I reached any door, even after I shut the game off. =(
 
In Fatal Frame 2 they did something very evil, if you took out your cam to say, look what was ahead since the fixed camera wouldn't allow you, in that very second that you peered through the camera, BAM! Ghost encounter! And the ghost would appear in your very face! That got me a lot of times making me drop the controller, ahh such good games the fatal frame series are.:D
And potentially life-scarring, only game that has robbed me of sleep because I am too afraid to go to sleep at night
 
KTallguy said:
Killer 7 has a lot of moments where I jumped out of my seat. It's got a weird, creepy vibe that isn't like any other game I've ever played.
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Even the standard Heaven Smile enemies were disturbing. They're sorta like RE4's regenerators, in both form and weak points.

Speaking of RE4, the scariest part were the credits. Seeing the villagers pre-Los Plagas, going about their daily business and then watching their environment get progressively distorted, creeped the hell outta me. (more than the scattered journals and documents in the previous RE games)
 
OttomanScribe said:
System Shock 2 remains my most scary game. I think it was mainly about the sense of unseen threat, the accounts of things going wrong recorded on tapes and writing in blood on the wall. That you spent so much time in the beginning of that game without seeing a single enemy really heightened things. I still shudder when I think of 'you don't sing the same song'.

I think Bioshock tried really hard to replicate it, but didn't quite get there. Though I can't quite put my finger on why not.
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I like that System Shock 2 didn't rely on cheap scares, but instead, the atmosphere slowly gets to you. There is definitely a sense of dread in the game. You have weapons and can defend yourself from enemies, but you are far from a death dealing machine. You have very limited ammo, your weapons break down, and its pretty difficult. It ends up being scary without having to use traditional scare tactics.
 
RubxQub said:
Easily the craziest thing for me in a game was in BioShock.

You're in the room with the dead person tied to the table because they were performing experiments on them, and this smoke fills the room or something. No big deal...but the moment you turn around, there is a splicer RIGHT IN YOUR FACE.

What's amazing about it is that they programed it in a way where it spawns behind you but won't take any action until you turn around to look at it.
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Came in to post something similar.

The farmers market level, where you first run into the fire Houdini splicers. I couldn't tell you exactly where in the level this occurs, but it's close to the very first time you run into one of 'em. I walked up to this table that had one of their deer looking masks on it. I walked up real close to it, cause I hadn't gotten a good look at them yet. All of a sudden, there was this shadow that appeared. Goosebumps on my arm, I turned around, and there was one of the splicers, standing right behind me, and he didn't move when i turned around, only when I brought up a plasmid did he evaporate into flames. Scared the bloody hell out of me. Had to pause and put the controller down.

Hugbot said:
Dead Space does this better than most horror games nowadays, but it really is becoming something of a lost art. Even Dead Space has problems with it. For the suspense to be effective for me, there has to be times where nothing happens. Where you're so sure that there's some horror lurking just at the end of the hallway, and then... nothing.

Too many jumpscares in a row leave a player/viewer expecting them. When you brace for horror, it loses much of its edge. Unfortunately, everyone is going in to a horror game expecting the horror, so there has got to be some give and take. You can't just have crazy monsters trying to kill the player all the time, there has to be a sense of dread stemming from not knowing whether or not there actually is anything behind them, waiting.
Click to expand...

Most people have been talking about two things in regards to Dead Space. Its incredible use of audio, and the lack of a pattern when it comes to enemies appearing or not. Hugbot, I couldn't agree more that the inability to predict the presence or not of a necromorph in Dead Space is an incredible touch. I had one specific experience that set the tone for the entire game for me, just after your second or third run in with the necromorphs in the first level. You've just finished a fight in a hallway, the intense music fades, and you casually make your way back to an elevator in an alcove. As soon as you walk up to the elevator, you see the shadow of a necromorph scuttle over your head, crawling on the ceiling behind you. So in dead silence, just after a fight, I wheel around, heart pumping, terrified to death... and there was nothing there. I was so angry that I nearly got a heart attack from a shadow >.<
 
Neptune. Friggin' Neptune.


I already have an unatural fear of deep bodies of water. This scenario was made up of all kinds of wrong.
 
Going back to FEAR, when the Pointman starts breathing heavily after a paranormal encounter always got me (mainly because the first time I played through that game, I was doing the same thing). Plus, when you had to restart (?) the computer network system in the dark area with the emergency light flashing all over the place.
 
Mannequins freak me out in real life, so any representation of them in games usually does the trick.

Also, this topic reminds me that I would have LOVED to have played the original RE4; creepy dolls, creepy painting, creepy dude who comes OUT of the painting and can phase in front of you....scary!
 
The music in the mansion of Eternal Darkness. Plus the bust of Vladimir Putin that keeps looking at you on the second floor. That game had so many good moments - I should really play it again.

Desiato said:
Does the overall sound design of Dead Space count? If so: the overall sound design of Dead Space. Hearing a metal pipe fall or whatever always stopped me in my tracks, thinking "should I really go on?".
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If you're low on health for a while, Isaac will make a muffled "Help meeeeeee." That scared the shit out of me.
 
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